Owls: Strike ace wants chances to shine

CLINTON Morrison is backing himself and Neil Mellor to fire the Owls into the promotion places if teammates supply the chances.

The ever-confident 31-year-old also sees last week's dazzling second-half show at Bristol City as the benchmark for the rest of the season.

If the Owls can play like that for a significant part of the remaining 24 games then there seems little doubt that they will be major contenders in the promotion stakes.

Mellor took his tally to 13 goals and Morrison has risen to eight - which has already led captain Darren Purse to predict that they are each capable of reaching 20 by the end of the campaign.

"It just shows what we can produce as a team when we can go away to an on-form Championship side and win so well," Morrison told The Star.

"Hopefully we can play like that more often, and Mells and I can kick on.

"We need to get into a good run now."

He accepts that the Owls, who are seventh ahead of today's game against Charlton, have a lot to do to finish in the top two.

But he added: "Whoever is in the top two is going to have times when they slip up. And we've yet to play Brighton, Bournemouth and Southampton away.

"In the first half against Bristol City, we needed to be better on the ball.

"In the second half, were were much better. That's what me and Mells thrive on; before, we hadn't really been creating a lot of chances. Hopefully we can go on a run now and kick on."

Mellor's strike meant that he was back on the goal trail after an ankle injury interrupted his season. He was on a total of 12 after a hat-trick at MK Dons on November 20, but was carried off at Hartlepool, 10 days later.

He and Morrison have emerged as a capable partnership but Morrison welcomes the extra competition that will arise if Alan Irvine brings in another striker, as he is hoping to do.

The Owls manager says he is not looking to offload Paul Heffernan. "We only have three natural strikers, so we're one down; the plan isn't to bring someone in and then let someone go so we're down to three again," he said.

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